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Date:         Tue, 20 Jan 2009 21:07:49 +1030
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From: Will Robertson <wspr81@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Key points of LaTex3
To: LATEX-L@LISTSERV.UNI-HEIDELBERG.DE
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Status: R

On 20/01/2009, at 8:22 PM, Martin Schröder wrote:

> 2009/1/20 Joseph Wright <joseph.wright@morningstar2.co.uk>:
>> I've had a go at summarising the key aims of LaTeX3, as I understand
>> them, on  my blog (http://www.texdev.net).  I'd be interested to know
>
> Very interesting, thanks.
>
> However, most of these aims bring no direct benefit for the user,
> while other areas where LaTeX is sorely showing it's age, e.g.
> hyperref, are missing. I think any LaTeX3 release without a direct
> integration of hyperref's features will not attract many users. The
> same goes for document classes (e.g. KOMA) and a much better
> integration of utf8 and fonts.

Definitely, of course.

It's just that most of the work done so far and available at the  
moment is in the area of the underlying groundwork (i.e., the expl3  
modules and the xpackages) before this sort of thing can be attempted.

Designing the user-level interfaces will be one of the last pieces of  
the puzzle, when we know what features we have to play with. There  
will probably be several iterations between specifying what we want  
the user interface to be and writing the code to implement it.

The vast scope of material on CTAN gives us a pretty good starting  
point for working out what should be included by default. As Frank has  
mentioned before, the functionality described in the entirety of The  
LaTeX Companion could be considered a first approximation of what a  
LaTeX3 user interface might be.

Writing a specification for a LaTeX3 interface is a huge task for a  
small team to tackle, perhaps greater in scope than writing from  
scratch the entire HTML and CSS specifications. Somewhat of a daunting  
task. It's probably a foregone  conclusion that we'll need further  
help from members of the community when the time comes for doing this.  
But it's never to early to start...

Cheers,
Will

P.S. (While I am working on some LaTeX3 code right now, these are  
obviously entirely my own opinions and might even be in opposition to  
the ideas of other members of the LaTeX3 team!)